2012-11-27

"The aim of this Brief is to outline how the coherent use of several existing information technologies can significantly accelerate the achievement of the vision stated in the Bank’s Long-Term Strategy (LTS)."

2012-11-17

1) good complimentary work between BPMs and PI
2) majority of PI configuration from Eclipse
3) simple configuration of PI's information flows
4) naming convention from SAP (!)
5) boundary between BPMs and PI is flexible thus requires good recommendations. For example, PMC262 puts some logic in PI while I would consider to put the same logic in BPM (actually in its inter-process communication part) for easier maintenance and monitoring. In case of performance, it may go to PI.
6) configurable alerts

2012-11-14

1) NetWeaver BPM can handle many pools in one diagram - pools are treated as separate processes (templates and processes) in case of async invocation
2) Event layer is available to externalise events from SAP ECC6, NW and SAP WF - this is a way to understand existing implicit processes
3) CEP engine is coming
4) It seems that BW will be replaced by something based on HANA
5) HTML5 is the choice to go to mobile apps which should work on-line and off-line
6) SUP is the way to communicate between SAP and mobile

+ A very good ipad application as a conference guide with personalised agenda

2012-09-22

It was noticed that the use of swimlines forces to put too much details in the diagram thus making it not easy to understand. With swimlines there is no place for a group of "tiny" activities which are carried out by several participants (each of them already has her/her own swimline), or "aggregated participant".

Without swimlines the use of "aggregated participant" may simplify complex diagrams.

The anti-pattern Ruined in Details (RID) was detected while looking at business processes documented by the users. Often, the sequence of activities (or tasks) is the following:
...
Role B: receive documents from role A
Role B: do your work
Role B: send documents to role C
Role C: receive documents from role B
Role C: do your work
Role C: send documents to role D
...

Sure that receiving and sending documents are important, but those activities don't add the value. Indicating only value-added-value activities (e.g. "do your work") will make diagrams more compact and easier to understand.

Maybe this anti-pattern is a sign that there are problems with integration?

I agree with you that BPM as discipline and BPMS are very different things. In my experience, they can be perfectly used within a proper architecture (i.e. “to think big”).

My experience relative “The NINE Contradictions in BPM Implementation Principles” (BTW, what is the origin of those principles?) is below.

If BPM would be capable of being business-driven then there is no need for executive enforcement.
AS: It is possible to be business-driven if BPM is properly architected.

If the implementation of processes would really happen through users there is no need for governance.
AS: It is for business to decide. Some governance is always necessary, maybe business one not IT one.

As business users can maybe draw a flow-diagram but can’t make it executable, the BPM stages are all performed by experts, actually reducing agility.
AS: Not necessary “reducing”, as the IT agility maybe higher (thanks to the architecture) than the business agility.

Both BPM methodology and BPMS ignore that users understand processes in terms of content and context and not in flow-diagrams.
AS: Not at all. Processes are positioned as the help for the users to carry out their work including also the handling the content.

To change business culture is a long term prospect and collides with short ROI time frames.
AS: BPM applications are the best example of agile projects. The ROI is great.

What kind of culture change should be necessary to motivate people to follow flow-diagrams all day.
AS: Again, disagree that BPM == “flow-diagrams”

To reduce scope creep and ensure ROI, governance limits end-user requirements and achievable quality.
AS: IT governance or business governance? In any case, late changes of user’s requirements are very welcome.

A holistic BPM methodology is then fragmented over many different software products for implementation.
AS: Yes, BPM is vendor-driven so far.

As the fragmentation requires governance, any change requires long-term planning and therefore reduces actual business agility.
AS: The architecture enables the agility.

If a BPMS is chosen to match current needs and maturity level then it has to be replaced frequently as the business matures.
AS: The architecture also helps with this.

At the same time, I agree with your “
...the following is needed to make BPM work” list.

Obviously there are several different BPMS, few BPM methodologies, a huge number of BPM implementations, but still missing parts are BPM reference model and BPM reference architectures.

As coordination can be carried out by an application or by a process engine, we have to be very careful to avoid the “double master” anti-pattern. At any moment in time there must be only one master responsible for the coordination of a particular process instance. (Of course, the coordination role may be delegated if appropriate.) This is analogous to a well-organised meeting where the chairperson decides who talks next.
Also well-coordinated work improves the security and integrity of data. It can be a useful design pattern to consider that only the person who has accepted a particular human activity can modify the business objects associated with that human activity. This is a dynamic granting/revoking of permissions which is synchronised with the process. Something like in the diagram below (which is not a valid BPMN as there are no "claim" and "unclaim" events defined).

The non-recognition of this anti-pattern can be very costly. We have observed a BPM solution which allowed the modification of data by a process engine, by an interactive application (i.e. by a human) and by a batch at the same time. The coordination of activities was based on data and, if necessary, the application or the batch could “correct” the process. The process engine was used mainly for the handling of three human activities, and the implementation of this solution (for a relatively simple business process) took several man-years.

2012-07-29

Delegation of Authotirty Matrix (DAM) is a popular corporate tool which specifies what role is authorized for what functions in particular case. For example, a Director can approve purchasing of some services for less than 50’000 USD; more costly services must be approved by a Vice-President. Of course, the corporate approval logic must be a unique service and not “implemented” by a few gateways in each process.

Servicing As A Process (SAAP) pattern was observed in “implied” business processes (http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2012/07/practical-process-pattern-mimo.html). It is implied that an organisation-unit-oriented (or functional) process is invoked from a bigger (almost end-to-end) process. Actually, the former is invoked to serve client’s requests and servicing of different request may overlap in time. Thus, each service invocation should be a separate instance (see the diagram below).

So, there are elements of a mass service system – an input flow of requests for service has to be served in accordance with a potential SLA and by a limited number of servicing slots. (Like a barber shop.)

2012-07-15

Pattern Multiple Instances Multiple Objects (MIMO) is observed in some business process diagrams provided by the business as documentation for their business processes. I call such business processes “implied”.
Typical case is the institutional (corporate) procurement process which is described as the following:

Submit Purchase Requisition (PR)

Choose Supplier

Issue Purchase Order (PO)

Receive Goods / Services

Pay Invoice

It looks very straightforward. But a PR may contain many positions which can be sourced by different methods:

From the stock

From a known (preferred) supplier

From an unknown (via a bid) supplier

And each of those methods requires its own process. So, multiple objects in the instance of “Submit PR” process may initiate multiple instances of sourcing processes (see the diagram below). This effect of is implied in the user’s documentation.

2012-07-08

The aim of this post is to outline how to organise the quick delivery of solutions via a platform architected in accordance with the PEAS enterprise pattern.

The business need

Users’ demands are typically numerous, have many overlapping features and will be implemented with different pace (because different users’ units work with different speed).
The challenge is to achieve the synergy between different demands and capabilities of the platform. It can be addressed by a proper combination of architecture (PEAS enterprise pattern), governance structure and implementation practices.

Decomposition into several basic functionalities

Vast majority of users’ demands correspond to several basic functionalities or combinations of them. For example, in an ECM-platform such typical functionalities are:

Information site

Collaboration site

Workflow

Data collection

Common storage

Business manual (a la wiki)

Public site

Extranet site

Integration with Outlook

Securing documents

Access from iPad

Integration with archive

Integration with SAP

Readiness review

Potential projects are in rows and functionalities are in columns. Each project requires some functionalities for its 1st and 2nd parts (phases). Each functionality is at the different level of readiness: green, yellow and red. This allows estimating the readiness for 1st and 2nd parts of each project. The popularity of each functionality can be estimated also.

The platform governance is carried out by an inter-organisational-units coordination committee (Platform Coordination Committee – PLACOCO).

Mini-projects are carried-out by solution architects (business analysts, technical staff, super-users from the business units, etc. - depending on their complexity).

Platform implementation resources (programmers and configurators) are provided by the IT department and by a set of authorised service providers (platform vendor and its authorised partners).

Operational team provides integration and release of solutions into production.

Implementation practices

Implementation practices should be as light as possible without any internal barriers. In any case, we will work with the speed of the users.

Users’ demand is understood by the business analyst (BIZAN).

If the BIZAN finds that this demand is too complex then it is escalated to the PLACOCO to assign another solution architect (SA) otherwise the BIZAN acts as the SA.

The solution dossier is prepared by the SA with the help of other staff members. A prototype is prepared if necessary.

If the solution dossier shows that a proposed solution is NOT straightforward (a set of rules to be defined and it can evolve over the time) then the PLACOCO evaluates it and approves any new features/extensions (if necessary).

The solution dossier is transferred to the internal pool of platform implementation resources to come up with the resource allocation.

If internal resources are not adequate (too busy or/and lack of expertise) then the solutions dossier is escalated to the external pool of platform implementation resources.

Mini-project team (including super-users) is formed and it iterates with the users to finalise the solution.

2012-07-07

Considering the definition of a process as “explicitly-defined coordination of services to create a particular result” this post shows how some explicit coordination techniques (rows) are employed by different “methodologies” (columns) for managing the business by processes.

The explicit dependencies between business-specific initiatives, business-generic needs(or business capabilities), IT-generic capabilities and programs demonstrated in figure below allow to explicitly linking the business priorities with the planning of IT actions. The logic of linking is the following:

each business-specific initiative has its own corporate priority;

each business-specific initiative requires a particular level of maturity of some existing business-generic needs;

each business-generic need has its own current level of maturity (can be determined by experts) and the requested level of maturity (so a gap can be identified);

particular level of maturity for each business-generic need depends on a particular level of maturity of some existing IT capabilities;

each IT capability has its own current level of maturity (can be determined by experts) and requested level of maturity (so a gap can be identified);

programmes to close gaps are proposed, and

priorities of programmes are defined by the contribution into business priorities.

Next step is how to preserve, enrich and re-use the technical/business knowledge and experience gained in each project. A possible way is to create competence forums which are oriented to deliver business-generic services (or "needs" as they mentioned in http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2011/09/writing-it-strategy.html ). Usually, such services are based on several IT-generic services which are mastered in different IT functions.

How those competence forums to be managed to avoid over complication and conflicts of responsibilities? Competence forum is led by the CIO with the help from an informal leader from the participants. For example, the CIO chaired a few initial meetings and then delegates the routine work to the informal leader.